Proverbs 15:9

The way of the wicked is an abomination unto the LORD: but he loveth him that followeth after righteousness.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

15:3. Secret sins, services, and sorrows, are under God's eye. This speaks comfort to saints, and terror to sinners. 4. A good tongue is healing to wounded consciences, by comforting them; to sin-sick souls, by convincing them; and it reconciles parties at variance. 5. If instruction is despised, reprove men rather than suffer them to go on undisturbed in the way to ruin. 6. The wealth of worldly men increases their fears and suspicions, adds strength to their passions, and renders the fear of death more distressing. 7. We use knowledge aright when we disperse it; but the heart of the foolish has nothing to disperse that is good. 8,9. The wicked put other things in the stead of Christ's atonement, or in the place of holy obedience. Praying graces are his gift, and the work of his Spirit, with which he is well pleased. 10. He that hates reproof shall perish in his sins, since he would not be parted from them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Not so - The word translated "so" is taken by some in its etymological force as "strong," "firm," and the passage is rendered "the heart of the fool disperseth (supplied from the first clause) what is weak and unsteady," i. e., "falsehood and unwisdom." The Septuagint takes it as an adjective, "the heart of the fool is unstedfast." The phrase as it stands in the King James Version is, however, of frequent occurrence Genesis 48:18; Exodus 10:11; Numbers 12:7.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8, 9. The sacrifice [and] prayer—are acts of worship.

way … followeth … righteousness—denote conduct. God's regard for the worship and deeds of the righteous and wicked respectively, so stated in Ps 50:17; Isa 1:11.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The way; the conversation or course of life. This verse seems to contain a reason of the foregoing. God hates wicked men’s religious performances, because they are accompanied with ungodly lives, and they pull down with one hand what they build up with another.

That followeth after righteousness; that earnestly desires, and constantly and diligently endeavours, to be holy and righteous in the course of his life, although he doth not attain to that perfect righteousness which he thirsts after.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The way of the wicked is an abomination unto the Lord,.... The way his heart devises, which he chooses and delights in, in which he walks; nor will he leave it, nor can he be diverted from it, but by the powerful grace of God. This is a way not good, but evil, and so an abomination to the Lord; and the whole tenor and course of his life, which is meant by his way being evil: hence his sacrifices, and all his external duties of religion performed by him, are abominable to the Lord; for, while he continues in a course of sin, all his religious exercises will be of no avail, cannot be pleasing and acceptable to God;

but he loveth him that followeth after righteousness; either after a justifying righteousness; not the righteousness of the law, which the carnal Jews followed after, but did not attain unto; nor is righteousness to be had by the works of the law, nor any justification by it, nor can a man be acceptable to God on account of it; but the righteousness of Christ, which he has wrought out, and is revealed in the Gospel: to follow after this supposes a want of one; a sense of that want; a view of the glory, fulness, suitableness, and excellency of Christ's righteousness; an eager desire after it, sometimes expressed by hungering and thirsting after it, as here by a pursuit of it; which means no other than an earnest and importunate request to be found in it: and such, as they shall be satisfied or filled with it, so they are loved by the Lord, and are acceptable to him through the righteousness they are seeking after: or else it may be understood of following after true holiness of heart and life, without which there is no seeing the Lord; and though perfection in it is not attainable in this live, yet a gracious soul presses after it, which is well pleasing in the sight of God.

Geneva Study Bible

The way of the wicked is an abomination unto the LORD: but he loveth him that followeth after righteousness.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - This verse gives the reason for the treatment specified in the preceding verse (comp. Proverbs 11:20; Proverbs 12:22). Followeth after; chaseth, implying effort and perseverance, as in the pursuit of game (Proverbs 11:19; Proverbs 21:21). Proverbs 15:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Another proverb with the key-word תועבת

An abomination to Jahve is the way of the godless;

But He loveth him who searcheth after righteousness.

The manner and rule of life is called the way. מרדּף is the heightening of רדף, Proverbs 21:21, and can be used independently in bonam, as well as in malam partem (Proverbs 11:19, cf. Proverbs 13:21). Regarding the form יאהב, vid., Fleischer in Deutsch. Morgenl. Zeitsch. xv. 382.